In Black America; I Never Loved A Man, with Matt Dobkin

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is In Black America. A lot of it had to do with her father. It was CL knew that he had this daughter with this incredible talent, at the time Barry Gordy was not who he is today. Motown was still a fledgling label and I think CL knew that he wanted her to go with a big international company, a really established thing and I think she did too and it's a good thing that they did that because Motown as Nikki Giovanni said to me that would have been a soul crushing, you know, artist talent, destroying relationship if she had signed there. Matt Doppkin, author of, I never loved a man the way I loved you, Aretha Franklin, respect and the making of a soul masterpiece published by St. Martin's press.

In early 1967, Atlanta records introduced a legendary voice of Aretha Franklin nationwide with the groundbreaking LP entitled, I never loved a man the way I loved you that contained all the first major hit songs and still continues to garner new listeners today. The book goes beyond anything that's been written about the Queen of Soul or a music. This book is the story of a great achievement and includes scores of fresh interviews with friends, family and many of the album's key contributors. You just meet firsthand of the gospel and soul music industry's major players at the time. I'm Johnny Ohenson Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, I never loved a man the way I loved you, Aretha Franklin, respect and the making of a soul masterpiece with author Matt Doppkin in Black America. Baby, baby, baby, this is just a shame how much I'm going to miss you but believe

while I'm away that I didn't mean to hurt you, don't you know that I'd rather hurt myself, I hurt myself, I hurt myself, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, think of me sometime, baby, because of love and you were so young, baby, and I'm guilty of this crime. For a lot of the public, Aretha Franklin is just this great soul singer and that's kind

of all she is. It's I think people, it's almost like a knee jerk thing. Everyone knows Aretha Franklin has this great voice period and I think that people have forgotten other elements of her artistry, the fact that she is an excellent piano player, the fact that she writes a lot of her material, the fact that especially with this album I never loved a man and this is the kind of emblematic example. She was really a co-producer, she was really the driving sport in the studio. And I think now, you know, there's some people have to sort of mix feelings about Aretha Franklin. She doesn't perform all that often because she's afraid of hate flying, you know, who knows what she's going to be wearing, what she shows up for a gig. She often isn't sort of not in the mood to sing. For more than six decades, a splendid instrument that is Aretha Franklin's voice has been transporting more listeners to invisible worlds than all the airlines, trains, buses and ocean liners combined. Born Aretha Louise Franklin on March 25, 1942 in Memphis, Tennessee, she was raised in Detroit, Michigan, where a father of the late Reverend C.L. Franklin was a Baptist

minister. Franklin sang in the church choir as a teenager. In 2014, she became a soloist and a father's traveling gospel review and made her first professional recording. The major musical influence during these years were Claire Ward, Mahalia Jackson and James Cleveland. In his book, I never loved the man the way I love you, author, doctrine, illustrates Franklin's delight in signing with the landed records after her commercially unsuccessful contract with Columbia records and take readers to the unpredictable recording session and muscle shows Alabama, where the album was produced. Also, he highlights the unfolding of the events in the context of the civil rights movement and the beginning of R&B music. Recently, in Black America, spoke with author Matt Doppkin. It was interesting, once I got past the Ford and was getting to the first chapter, the comment by Ray Charles in 1968. I don't know anybody that can sing a song like Aretha Franklin, nobody, period.

I spoke with Nina Horn some years ago and she made the comment that she wish she could sing like Aretha Franklin. I think that that's a very common thing among a lot of singers, even really great singers. I mean, I know that the opera singer Renee Fleming, I've interviewed her and she's talked about wishing she could sing like Aretha Franklin. I know that Middler is a huge fan and has said she didn't know what singing was about until she heard Aretha. So, yeah, you have these people who are known as great singers, but they too wish they could sound like Aretha. Aretha born in 1942 in Memphis, Tennessee, but eventually moved to Detroit with her father, pastor, C.L. Franklin. Aretha family life, particularly at home, there were so many notables coming through to the home because of Franklin's her father's notoriety. It was a who's who of the entertainment industry?

Absolutely. I mean, C.L. was good friends with the Sam Cook. Sam Cook is to sing in his church occasionally, Mahalia Jackson was a very close family friend. So with Clara Ward, gospel singer, of course, Dina Washington was sort of a friend, art cadem. So, these are all people who used to show up. I think people forget that in a certain way Aretha was sort of a child prodigy because you don't think of her in that way. You think of Michael Jackson and people like that as these child prodigies, but Aretha was kind of the same with all these tremendous luminaries coming into her house all the time regularly and she, as a young child, her father would drag her out of bed and ask her to come and perform for these people and she would as this eight-year-old, ten-year-old child and people like art cadem and Sam Cook are dazzled when they hear Aretha sing. So yeah, it was definitely, I think she knew what it was like to be surrounded by serious top notch musicians from a very early age and she also knew that she could kind of roll

with them. She was, you know, if not at their level as a kid, she was close. We want to walk the listeners through the book, we're not going to give them everything. Your first chapter, The Voice of Black America. How did you entitle that particular chapter? Well, what I tried to do, the first chapter is really kind of an introductory chapter that I wanted to sort of set up how I was coming about thinking about Aretha and her music. The whole point of the book is to really focus on her at this moment of her cultural emergence in 67 when I never loved a man came out and you know, she really overnight became this not only an international star when respect hit the airwaves, but she became this a black icon. I mean, she became a hugely important figure in the black community with respect basically overnight.

You know, she'd been on another label for six years, recording more sort of jazzy stuff when not really had any hits. And then overnight she becomes really the symbol of black pride and this important figure, with musically and culturally. That was what I was, what the book is really trying to sort of establish her as that figure and so I thought that would be a good way to start out, just call her The Voice of Black America, which in fact would have Nikki Giovanni described her to me when I interviewed her. That other company was Columbia Records. Exactly. And obviously they didn't really understand at that time what they had. They were trying to make her a jazz singer along the styles of a black bar of a stri-sand. Exactly. And it wasn't working. It wasn't working. And I think that, you know, she didn't really mind it. Right. I think that she liked a lot of the material she was singing for that. You know, she was choosing a lot of the songs, although she wasn't writing a lot of stuff at that point at Columbia.

It just kind of wasn't working. You know, you, I think if you're taking a wreath of Franklin, a singer who is just completely born and bred in the church, you know, she has this gospel background and there's no way to get around it. You know, there's something kind of constraining about putting her, trying to turn her into the black bar of a stri-sand and giving her, you know, show tunes to sing. So, you know, she's got the kind of voice where she really can sing anything. And these are songs that she was crazy about. But it just wasn't the right thing. Somehow, you know, the great stroke that Jerry Wexler, her first producer at Atlantic Records, that was really not just to let her do more gospel-inflected stuff, but to really have her kind of leading the action in the studio and to be at the piano as the kind of driving force. I think that when she was doing her stuff at Columbia, she was very much what was called a chick singer, where she was, she was the artist, but she sort of showed up, stood at the mic, sang the song, and you know, I think that was largely it. She didn't do a lot of piano playing when she was at Columbia.

She didn't write a lot of her own material. She was just kind of showing up and singing these songs. And so, I think she enjoyed it, but that wasn't the kind of thing that was going to turn her into a cultural force. I think that she really revealed a lot of herself when she was the person sitting at the piano driving the action in the studio with all the other parts to the recording, sort of being fitted around her. Franklin style recording when she was 14. Since then, she has had 20 number one rhythm and blues hits and 117 Grammys. In 1967, at the urging of record executive and producer Jerry Wexler, Franklin moved from Columbia records to Atlanta records. Her career went through sea chains that brought her vocal powers to full world attention. Wexler booked her into the Florence, Alabama music, and podium studios and muscle shows Alabama to record with the kicking rhythm section. But Wexler was only one of three men who helped make Franklin the legend she is today. There's just a kind of irony that, you know, the first chapter is called The Voice of

Black America. That is what a wreatha really became virtually overnight. And it just struck me as kind of Iran that there were these white guys who were largely responsible for furthering her career. It started out with John Hammond, the legendary Columbia producer who I don't want to say discovered her because if anyone really discovered her, it was her father. But he was the one who gave her her first record deal. He actually wasn't happy with the direction that the other sort of Columbia executives were pushing her in. But he, I think, did really understand the nature of her talent and to let her sort of gospel phrasing out loose was the way to go. He understood that Jerry Wexler, who signed her to Atlantic, he definitely understood that. And he, you know, I interviewed Jerry Wexler, I spent a couple of days with him when I was writing the book and he's a hilarious guy. He's a great guy, at this point I think he's 87, white Jewish guy from New York City.

And you know, to think that he, I think at the time of the recording of the album, he was 49, I read that was 24, and there's just something so funny and kind of charming and imagining the two of them working together. You know, this crazy kind of imperious big loudmouth, New York guy, and this shy black woman from Born and Memphis raised in Detroit sort of coming together. And then the third white guy that I refer to in that chapter is Rick Hall, who owns same studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where they started recording the album. They didn't get very far and he also engineered the session and he is, you know, largely responsible I think for the kind of found that really emerged for her, for Aretha Amdus' first record because he was, you know, the sort of chairman of the Muscle Shoals, Alabama music scene, which is a growing kind of thriving soul funk with elements of country, kind of studio

that was sort of gaining prominence at the time they had just recorded Wilson Pickett right before Aretha recorded there. So it just struck me as sort of ironic and funny that Aretha Franklin in 1967 emerges as the voice of black America under these three white guys who couldn't come from more different backgrounds from her or from each other who are kind of behind the scenes leading her to that point. How did Rick convince her and Ted White to go to Muscle Shoals? Well, it was actually Jerry who convinced them to do it and I don't think it was very difficult. I think, you know, they had some hesitation about going down to the deep south in Alabama in 1967 when the racial situation in Alabama was not good. You know, I spoke to Ted White about it and he said, you know, I'd heard some of the stuff coming out of there and it seemed like it might be a pretty good idea. I think they were very, once the Columbia contract was over, they were pretty easy going.

They knew that they wanted, they'd written a lot of songs, they knew they had some material, they were eager to get into the studio and continue working on new stuff. And you know, Jerry Wexler was basically the biggest record producer in the world at that time and if he says, you know, I've got a great funk soul band down south that we just cut Wilson Picket down there. I think you should try it as well. It seemed like as good an idea as any. You mentioned the title of the song could have had a plethora of different meanings as I never loved a man the way I loved you, it could have been spiritual, it could have been about her dad. Exactly. It could have been about any number of individuals. I think that, you know, this is one of the sort of, I mean, there are a lot of levels, I think, to Orita singing and you know, you can hear a song like I never loved a man and just sort of take it at face value, lyrically and assume that this means, you know, she is talking to this boyfriend lover or whatever and she's just sort of expressing her feelings

for him and it's very literal. And then there are also sort of other meanings, you know, maybe she is speaking to her father, maybe that's what she's sort of feeling. You know, she said that if she can't feel it, she can't sing it. That's sort of her approach to choosing songs and writing songs. And so you know that there's something going on. I think that, you know, pop songs from the 60s, often there's not a whole lot beneath the surface lyrically. But there's something about her voice, which is so hard to describe, that really kind of suggests that there is something bubbling under the surface, that the literal words aren't necessarily what she's feeling as she goes through it. And you know, it doesn't even matter what she is thinking, whether this is that song in particular. If she's singing to, you know, if it's a literal song directed at a lover or if it is on some level something she's singing to her father or if it has this religious element

and when she says I never loved a man the way I love you, she's speaking to God, singing to God. You know, that's a possibility too. And I think what's interesting is that you don't have to pin down the right answer. You know, it doesn't matter which one she is singing to. It's just that there's something about the texture of her voice, the emotion behind it that suggests that there are a lot of things going on. And I think that's one of the things that people really respond to in her singing. You're no good, hard breaker, you're lying, and you're cheating, and I don't know why. I'll let you do these things to me, my friends keep telling me, then you ain't no good. Whoa, whoa, whoa, but they don't know that I can leave you if I could. I guess I'm on time, and I'm stuck like Luke, because I ain't there, I ain't not, I ain't

not going to go. Love a man, the way that I, I love him, some time I go, I thought, you would run out of food, but I was so wrong, you got one that you never knew. The way you treat me is a shame, I caught you, had been so bad, maybe you know that I'm the best thing that you ever had, kiss me once again, no, you never, never say that was true, because I ain't never, never, never, no, no, love a man, the way that I love

you. You're moved to in the book that, when Ruth of Singes is, she's singing as though she is singing to you, the individual who's listening, person. Yeah, I think that's, you know, another, another thing, faster for voices, there's something so, just totally honest in her singing and, and very direct and, and forceful and attention grabbing. So, it's one of these things way, it's, it's almost like picking up a novel and reading a book and you feel like this writer has somehow captured your own personal experience, somehow this person knows you is speaking directly to you, and I think that she has a similar effect, there's just something so bracing and emotional and forceful and, and truthful about her singing when she's really on and doing the right kind of material that, um, you feel a connection to her.

Also doing this period, there were other things pulling at our heartstrings. She had three young children and she's off, a majority of the time, recording. Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a difficult, a difficult period when she was, especially a little before this album, when she was really young, you know, when she was 18 years old and, and 20 years old and in New York and, and this was before her marriage to Ted White, you know, she was kind of a single girl in New York trying to make a career and at this point she's still in Columbia, she's singing jazz, she's performing in jazz clubs and basically if you want to work in the music industry and be doing that kind of material you have to be in New York. So she did have separations from, from her kids who were, who were left, uh, back in Detroit with her father and her grandmother and, um, and I think it was, it was, you know, she said as much that it was difficult and I, I know she took pains to get back there as often as she could and by the time this record, uh, came out, you know, she was married to Ted, she was a little older and I think her, her, her, her home life was, you know, maybe

a little more stable or there was more of a network of, of help there, you know, she's, she's a young married woman with three kids, you know, I think she, um, was in, in a better position at that point by the time this album came on to really sort of be involved in the day-to-day parenting, but you know, when she was a young, when she was a teenager it was, it was difficult to sort of balance the career and, and having kids. One of the, the drama chapters, the incident, um, they got through recording, I never loved the man of the way I loved you, but the trumpet player who hadn't played on any of the, the other songs that are currently on the album, right, uh, got the drinking, uh, rick didn't allow drinking and one thing led to another, Ted got upset, uh, Ritha got upset when he went back to the hotel, Ritha left and she went in, communicado for two or two or three weeks. A couple of weeks, yeah. And finally, Jerry said, if we're going to record this, we're going to record it back up in New York. Exactly. I, I mean, and in fact, it was an interesting

thing because basically all the guys who played on this, um, on this session in Muscle Sholes were local Muscle Sholes guys and a couple of Memphis people. Um, and there was a real community of musicians, um, at this point in, in these towns. Um, so everyone knew each other, you know, Rick Hall ran the studio. He and Jerry got in touch with a guitarist and produced her chip's moment, um, who's one of the songwriters of, of Do Right Woman, told him to call a couple of people and basically there was this sort of very regular network of players. They all got together. The only problem was the, the usual horn crew that, um, this sax player, Charlie Chalmers usually puts together, they couldn't, couldn't play the gig. So he had to kind of assemble and impromptu, um, horn section, which included this one guy on trumpet, who no one knew. So he was kind of the wild card in this, in this session. And, um, you know, according to, to the guys who played on the session, he was, he was drinking, which was an absolute no-no in, in the studio. Of course, that didn't

mean people didn't drink in the studio because, you know, it's just sort of par for the course. I think at a recording session for musicians to, to be drinking, but it wasn't allowed. So if you were going to do it, you needed to be really quiet about it and really sort of keep it together. Um, and, you know, this guy just apparently got out of line. And, um, there's some talk that he even, he pinched Arisa. He, Ted White says he definitely said something inappropriate to her. And so they asked Rick, um, Rick Hall to fire him, which he did. Um, but somehow that wasn't enough just firing him. And I think Ted was annoyed and Rick was upset and Rick thought that the session was going really badly. He was very nervous. This was, you know, he had done Wilson ticket, but this was still a huge sort of project for him with Jerry Weckler bringing Arisa Franklin for him to record. This was a kind of maker break opportunity for him. So I think he was anxious. And the whole thing just kind of fell apart from, from that point on. So they, they'd recorded the, the

title track. I never loved to man. By most accounts, everyone was thrilled with the result. And, um, but then Ted, just because of the whole sort of thing with the trumpet player, he went back to the hotel, Rick decided he needed to go. He, Rick started drinking. He decided he needed to go back, uh, follow Ted to the hotel and try and patch things up. Weckler told him not to that he would take care of it, but he went anyway. Anyway, in the next thing, you know, Rick and Ted are, are sort of coming to blows in the hotel. In the meantime, the funny thing is, while all this is going down, um, Arisa is still in the studio working with a couple of the musicians on Do Right Woman. Take me to heart, and I'll always love you. And nobody can make me do wrong. Take me for granted, leaving love on shore. Makes willpower weak, and temptation strong.

Can one explain what made this particular song and album such a monumental success and that was the first single and that had an immediate impact. And I think that just, while it's hard to imagine today, at the time that, that was an incredibly

modern, up to the minute sounding record. And, um, you know, while, while Arisa had recorded albums before, she'd never recorded in this style where it was just so gospel and fused, this sort of very direct, bluesy number. Um, you know, that kind of singing while we had to take it for granted today was not common on the airways at that time. But you know, it's not common on the airways at the time, but you know, it's not common on the airways at that time. But you know, it's not common on the airways at that

time. And what made this particular song and album such a marvelous song and album I've been speaking with MacDopton, author of, I never loved the man the way I loved you, respect, and the making of a soul music masterpiece. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions ask your future in Black American programs, email us at inblackamerica at kut.org. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can get previous programs online at kut.org. Also you can listen to a special collection of in black American programs at American Archives or Public Broadcasting at americanarchives.org.

To view the opinion expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin, until we have the opportunity again for technical producer David Alvarez. I'm Johnny Elhenson Jr. Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week. CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America CDs. KUT Radio 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard Austin, Texas 78712. That's in black America CDs. KUT Radio 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard. Austin, Texas 78712. This has been a production of KUT Radio.